


Squirtle Squad

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, i'll just add more people as i write more welp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who is this dork joining John's Spanish class?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And so it begins

**Author's Note:**

> the beautiful magnificent viazi was a dear enough to beta this for me, what a lovely little thing

“Your name is Dave Strider?”

Why yes, yes it is, but of course you already know that. But wait, you should probably  
acknowledge your teacher with a response. You hastily deliberate potential retorts.

‘Yes’: What no, that sounds awkward.

‘Yes sir’: Somewhat less awkward, but let’s not tell the teacher and the whole class that you’re either a giant douchebag or a huge brown noser.

‘Yeah’: Okay, now you're getting somewhere. Less stuffy, but sounds a little flippant and too casual which could come off as trying too hard and that’s not what you’re going for.

‘Yep’: Curt and a bit jaunty, which could possibly reflect your eagerness for the class.  
However, your exterior (you hope) will reflect your complete nonchalant attitude towards academics and therefore, it sarcastically parallels how much you don’t care about school. That'll work, you think. 

“Yep,” you say without missing a beat. Your deliberations go by much quicker in your head than you think they would considering the amount of thought that takes place. You casually ignore this observation and quickly turn your attention back to your teacher. It’s your first day of school here, and you wouldn’t want to miss something the teacher said to potentially make a fool of yourself already. That wouldn’t make a very cool first impression.

“Alright, Dave. You can take a seat next to John for now.” Mr….Who? says. You make a mental note to yourself to remember your teacher's names better.

You scan the room looking for this John kid. There are a lot of unoccupied seats around the room, but there's an empty chair in the second to last desk at the very right next to the window. Prime seating territory, just like in your brother's favorite animes. You'll never be called on there! You pray to yourself that the kid right next to the seat with an incredibly dull look on his face is John.

“John, raise your hand so Dave knows where to sit.”

The person you were looking at was not John. John is instead a bespectacled boy sitting on the exact opposite side of the room from the window seat. While the disappointment is missing from your face and body language, you begrudgingly make your way towards the John kid waving at you. ‘Balls’ you think taking a quick glance at John. 

You catch him staring at you and his eyes snap back to the front of the room. 

Shit. You don’t move a muscle. You keep yourself completely composed and relaxed. You are the poster boy of all things completely and totally ice cool. On the outside at least; on the inside you’re actually flipping the fuck out because what if this guy thinks you’re weird or a jerk or some loser being a complete poser or some creepy loner transfer student. First impressions are important to the people you’re going to be sitting next to for the rest of the year and you do your best not to come off as a complete asshole.

“Sup” you say. Yes, that’s perfect. One of your stock ice breakers and probably the best.

“Hi!” His voice cracks. God you feel a chill run down your spine; you are so embarrassed for him. He quickly turns away from you and his face turns completely red. You hope he doesn’t see your face turning a bit pink for reasons you don’t feel like exploring right now. You decide it’s just empathy.

Buckle up Strider, this is going to be a long year.

（・◇・）/~~~

You read the top right corner of your Spanish worksheet and identify yourself as Johnathan Egbert in Spanish II! After establishing your identity, you begin doodling along the sides of your paper (coincidentally, you swear!) the same time your teacher starts talking. Before you know it, you hear your name and you decide that maybe you should pay attention to what's going on in class! You look up to your instructor and spot some guy sporting stupidly shaped sunglasses standing next to him.

"John, raise your hand so Dave knows where to sit." your teacher says. You wave your hand a little at the string bean stationed at the front of the room as you have no idea what's going on. (You really shouldn't let this cluelessness become a regular thing!)

As Dave makes his way to the empty seat that you've enjoyed during these first couple weeks of school, you piece together that he's joining your Spanish class. You observe him the entire time it takes him to sit down, wow he's slow, and try to pinpoint where exactly you've seen sunglasses like his before. The second you recall Ash's squirtle from the Squirtle Squad, his eyes meet yours and your head makes the fastest ninety degree turn you will probably ever make.

Crap! What are you doing John, now he knows you were staring at him! Well, he isn't reacting, so you guess everything is still fine. You recover from your little blunder and instead focus extra hard on the words written on the white board. Maybe if you act calm and get him to ignore you, he won't realize what a huge goof you are and you might be able to go through this year without being bothered by jerks or possibly you can try and make some new friends or maybe you can even break out of your awkward disposition and become as social as you've always seen your cousin be!

"Sup," Dave says, breaking you out of your intense, forced concentration. Oh god. Why is he talking to you.

"Hi!" you tensely reply and wow that was definitely your voice cracking. Any hope that he didn't somehow think you were complete loser has been decimated. You throw out your previous aspirations and make a silent vow never to speak again to your classmates as you search his face for any signs of amusement. You decide that you can't even look at him and shut yourself up for the rest of the period. You're now feeling a little warm and you wish you weren't wearing long sleeves today.  
Gosh, is it just you or is the room really hot all of a sudden!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave wins the highly sought after, Most Awkward Creep award.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viazi continues to put up with my shit writing and beta'ed this chapter, what a gal!

Over the next few days, you feel like you are stepping on eggshells. You’re under the impression that the Egbert kid hates you or something, because he hasn’t made eye contact or said more than two words to you since the day you joined his class. You don’t want to bother him or make him hate you more than he probably already does, so you haven’t exactly been trying to start up much conversation either. It’s sort of like attempting to pet a wild animal. Do not scare away the Bunbert, be careful not to make any sudden moves!  
  
Unfortunately, this puts you about 20 yards away from this boy. You're stuck watching him from afar because you’re too afraid of startling him. How can you guys ever become friends if you scare him away?  On the contrary, how can you become friends if you never actually interact with him? Oh, woe is you.  
  
You ultimately find yourself being too much of a pussy to actually do anything, and out of a mix of self-loathing and curiosity, you resign yourself to just observing him. G.I. Strider, you have been ordered strictly to just gather intel on the elusive Egbunny.  
  
Don't worry. You've got this.  
  
The first thing you take note of is his brazen disregard for self image. While you expend a lot of your energy on actively repressing all of your dumb habits, John instead openly displays a plethora of little quirks. He’s just fine by himself and doesn’t seem to care whether other people want anything to do with him or not. You’ve seen him talk with his friends between passing period and during these brief and creepy observations you’re exposed to a different side of him that you don't get to see in the classroom. You find he's incredibly dorky, yet it's completely endearing. His personality can only be described as being “John-like” and nothing else, and you wish that he would open himself up to you like be does with his friends. You wish that you could open yourself up to him.  You wish that you could be friends with him.  
  
You, somewhat amused, also take note of how he hardly conceals his interests in lameass things. Yeah that’s right, you can see that Ghostbusters folder in his backpack and is that possibly an anime binder that you've spotted? Man, you don’t let yourself use anything other than solid colored (preferably red and orange) notebooks and other school supplies. Every so often you see him doodling awful slimers on his papers (which you could only identify as such after you discovered the Ghostbuster’s folder) along with a few clowns every now and then (they always get crossed out after a while). He sticks his pen in his mouth when he’s thinking and he whispers his words out loud as he writes them. He reads his pocket Colonel Sassacre’s Text of Whatevers when class gets really slow and he picks at his nails (you bite yours too). One time you caught him wearing a weird beagle puss in front of the bathroom mirror and another time you saw him with something suspiciously resembling a magic wand in his pencil case and sometimes you see him just space out and even sometimes giggle to himself, probably remembering something funny. You can't stop watching him and while your sunglasses are pretty damn opaque, you're still paranoid that he knows.  
  
Today you notice him playing an invisible piano while the teacher digresses during lecture. An alarm rings in your head and look! He obviously plays an instrument! You kind of play an instrument! Well, you know people that play instruments! This is the perfect opportunity to talk about music or something! Now you can level up and graduate from stalker to acquaintance! You’ve got to say something to him!  
  
“You play the piano?” you inquire. You try to say it just loud enough so John can hear, but not too loud so that the teacher hears you and gets back to teaching. You're about to repeat yourself right when he responds and you swallow it down immediately.  
“Oh. Um. Yeah!” John says, and smiles the tiniest bit. “I took lessons when I was a little kid,” he continues. “There’s just this dumb song that’s been stuck in my head all day and doing this” (he waggles his fingers) "kind of makes it better."  
  
“I know a bit about classical music myself,” you find yourself saying, and you mentally kick yourself in the shin, “Maybe I know the song or the composer.” You actually only know a couple musicians like Mozart or Bach because of that one time you didn’t tune yourself out of a conversation with your sister about her violin playing. However you’re fairly confident in your ability to bullshit your way through conversations about subjects you have basic knowledge about. Perfect for this, you guess.  
  
“Oh um, it’s actually not anything classical. It’s an Aerosmith song.” He smiles and your ears warm a little and an elephant just sat on your chest.  
  
“Aerosmith is pretty cool," you squeeze out, "I think I have a vinyl of theirs stashed somewhere.”  
  
"Woah haha, pretty cool!" he replies and hey, he doesn't look as though he strained himself trying to talking with you.  
  
Thus ends your first real conversation with John Egbert. You notice that his posture is suddenly more relaxed and his expression is a little less bored. You give yourself a mental pat on the back for not messing everything up. You are even able to manage some more small talk through the rest of the period and do your best to constrain your rambling.  
  
The rest of the period passes quickly, with you and John making quiet chit chat throughout. As you and John talk, in the back of your mind you start planning. If you talk to him every class period for the rest of the week, that should put you on level of familiarity you want, where you’ll be able to wave to him in hallways. And then once he gets used to your greetings outside of class, you can work on being actual friends instead of just classmates. You make another mental note to gradually go through this process to make it seem natural, and hopefully not as though you’re coming onto him.  
  
You think tonight you’re going to set your plans in motion.  You're going to make your first move and add him on Facebook. Perfect.


End file.
